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Post by bobarian on Apr 1, 2005 16:22:30 GMT -5
No, buddhism is not humanist... or at least in its traditional forms. Buddhist-lite for Westerners... I don't know. But then, no one really knows how to classify Buddhism anyway... the few people who actually understand it...
Buddhism would have to be the one alternative to theism that is also not merely humanist.
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Post by Satori on Apr 1, 2005 17:14:02 GMT -5
wouldnt buddhists be considered theists? No, certainly not. The Buddha never claimed to be anything but a man. There are no gods in Buddhism. Strictly speaking Buddhism has no preference one way or the other in terms of gods; belief in gods could be seen as a good thing if it helps one on the road to enlightenment or a bad thing if it hinders one. One thing Buddhists do generally believe is that, if there is a god at all, it's not one that sits in judgement over us or involves itself in human affairs like the Abrahamic God. The confusion often arises because the 'highest profile' Buddhism (perhaps) in the media is Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetans have rituals that involve the many gods of their culture. Buddhism is one of those institutions that sits somewhere between a philosophy and a religion, depending upon how one defines the term 'religion'. As such it can sometimes sit comfortably alongside other cultures and religions, although they may not always sit comfortably alongside Buddhism for various reasons. I remember a story about a Buddhist Monk who was once lent a copy of the New Testament by one of his students. After reading it he gave gave it back to the student, saying "Excellent book - much of that is what I've been trying to tell you all along". On a slightly related note, I found this article quite interesting: www.anglicannifcon.org/BuddhistMonkPF.htm
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Post by Satori on Apr 1, 2005 17:34:49 GMT -5
No, buddhism is not humanist... or at least in its traditional forms. Buddhist-lite for Westerners... I don't know. But then, no one really knows how to classify Buddhism anyway... the few people who actually understand it... The basis of all forms of Buddhism (probably even 'Buddhist-lite', which is a new one on me) is the Four Noble Truths and they're not hard to understand at all. There are a lot of over-intellectualised concepts that often crop up in Buddhism, but even a full understanding of those concepts is of little help to the practising Buddhist. Buddhism has to be 'felt' and 'understood' at a deeper level which has no truck with words or concepts. One of my biggest problems is that I'm prone to over-intellectualising. I've had monks taking away and burning my notepad and pencil a few times now and simply telling me to 'just be' and meditate a bit more.
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Post by theditchmagnet on Apr 1, 2005 17:41:30 GMT -5
i wasnt reffering to the buddha as a god, but the buddah did belive in the supernatural, and that could give way to a god or gods of course. so the tibetan strain would be considered theistic, and other forms would not necesarily be considerd theisitc? so a more "pure" buddhism would not be considered religion then, since it would deal more with life issues, and is more of a functional equivalent?
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Post by Satori on Apr 1, 2005 18:58:33 GMT -5
i wasnt reffering to the buddha as a god, but the buddah did belive in the supernatural The Buddha’s own words ('Discourses') make little reference to supernatural forces or places. That's not to say he did or didn't actually believe in the supernatural, only that it's not an important consideration in the search for enlightenment. Now, if you're talking about some of the Sutras, they weren't written by the Buddha, but they do contain plenty of references to strange supernatural events. These are generally taken to to be allegorical parables, the study of which is said to promote understanding. Possibly, but it doesn't really matter. Well it's not that simple (and I'm not so sure there's such a thing as 'pure' Buddhism beyond the Four Noble Truths I mentioned ealier). As the Buddha would say, all these descriptions are merely 'fingers pointing at the moon'. It's the moon that counts, not the multitude of fingers pointing at it, no matter how many there are. As I said, my biggest problem is a habit of intellectualising it too much. If somebody asked me what Buddhism's all about I'd probably start trying to explain about impermanence, non-duality, Karma, no-soul, ego and all that stuff. A wiser and much more practiced Buddhist would probably tell someone that "Buddhism is the fig tree in the garden" and then leave them to go away and think about such a ludicrous reply, knowing full well that questioner will get more out of it in the long run. Understanding - in the sense of enlightenment - doesn't come through intellectual study. There is a popular story about the relationship between a monk and one of his students in a Zen temple. Everytime the student asked "Master what is enlightenment?", the monk slapped him hard across the face. After a number of years of this, the student was very fed up and decided to leave the temple and go to another one. When he arrived at the new temple and moaned about his treatment at the old temple, his new master slapped him across the face and said "how lucky you are". In that moment the student was enlightened. The student went back to his old temple and the Master who had slapped him so many times said "Well, young student, did you find the answer to your question?". The student then slapped the master across the face and the master smiled and said "Ah yes, I see that you did".
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Post by Shiggy on Apr 1, 2005 19:30:36 GMT -5
Bob: as Satori has pointed out, the spectrum of human beliefs is far wider than you allow. First of all, all your claims of Christianity "causing" sexism are non-unique because as you said, pornography has existed since the beginning of recorded time. A study of history will reveal that the status of women in Roman times was far cruder and far worse than the standards of the Christian faith. Thus to say that Christianity caused any degradation of women is simply not true; that existed before Christianity. I am in no way disputing the existence of sexism prior to Christianity. This, however, does not rebutt my arguments about the Christian Church's (especially early) social influences on western society. The Church served to perpetuate and prolong these attitudes with its sexist attitudes toward women, as I have already outlined. #1 Pornography, while it has existed for a long time, is epidemic right now. Internet pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry that ensnares not only older men and women but also preteens (to my disgust.) The sheer ubiquity of it is amazing. And pornography is legitimized by a humanitistic argument that "If it doesn't hurt anyone else, its ok." Basically, since pornography doesn't actually physically harm anyone, its harmless. I think that the spiritual and psychological effects of pornography are unbelieveable - but how could I explain that to someone who doesn't believe in a transcendent moral framework? Oh fine, they'll say, that's your beliefs, and I've got mine. Well, yes, and they'd be right. I'm certainly not denying that it can harm in psychological and social ways (as well as physical, actually); my point was that the difference is that now there are laws protecting workers, which make working conditions a hell of a lot safer for women. Of course pornography is exploitative and sexist; I agree with this completely. But I think that women's possession of legitimate legal status as persons in their own right frees them from the formerly absolute male power and control which existed in times prior to the mid 20thC. I'd also like to restate my previous point that women now have incredible earning power in this industry; needless to say, a huge improvement to their conditions of work and, as Satori said, it is now a chosen field of work; women possess far more autonomy and power than they once did. I guess we just disagree about the state of today's pornography industry as compared with previous VD-ridden and abusive, unregulated times. #2 Rape & Abusive Marriage As I said, it is impossible to say that Christianity "caused" any of these things. Just your opinion, of course. ... any legislation that has been passed would of course have come out of the Christian legal framework of protecting the individual. I really can't see how this is in any way an answer to my point about the previous legal status of women as male property. This does NOT protect the individual; quite the opposite, which has been my point all along. But I agree that it was indeed the Christian legal framework which was responsible for such dangerous laws. That's the whole point. Any laws dealing with rape and abusive marriage would be fully supported by Christians - in fact, the number of private Christian crisis centers for women is substantial. You're obviously talking about today's Christians as members of today's society in general which almost unanimously now believes in sexual equality, by the way. This change in social opinion is due to wider outside changes in secular values, not to inner changes of the Church. The church lags behind secular society in its shifts in "acceptable" morality, as can be seen in various other areas such as women's rights concerning abortion, premarital sex, and traditional sexist family gender roles. The church just gets pulled along by the rest of society because it has to maintain some semblance of relevance and popularity among the general population so it doesn't die out. #3 Head coverings 1 Cor. 11:16 "If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice–nor do the churches of God." This is a very unique statement of Paul's, and it validates what I said earlier. The idea of the head covering and what it means is very important to their context, and it could not be ignored. Yet nowhere does Paul claim some sort of universal appeal for this practice - he merely says, if anyone doesn't like it, well, all the churches do it this way (there's no way to get around it, frankly.) Thanks for that. I can see now that the cultural interpretation does indeed have some textual basis. Much appreciated. The point remains, though; I think today's "literalist" Christians would differ in their attitudes toward women from those who lived in more sexist times, and these differences are due to outside social factors, so no-one can ever truly be completely literalist in their biblical interpretation. It will always be inevitably coloured by one's societal and cultural values. People have thought these things through many times. Possibly not enough, imo.
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Post by Electron on Apr 3, 2005 11:39:26 GMT -5
OK, all very interesting, but I wanted to get a reaction from those that held the bible to be accurate and inerrant Still I'm left wondering what was meant by "man is the measure of all things" regarding humanism. That statement gives me rather an uneasy feeling.
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Post by theditchmagnet on Apr 6, 2005 16:08:38 GMT -5
I understand that some people believe every word of the bible to be accurate and inerrant. This would seem to be an obvious requiremnet given that if some content were shown to be wrong, then we would not know which other parts might also be incorrect. This is a vital issue as all of the important propositions to do with divine revelations are untestable and need to be accepted on faith. So what if something very significant was written that simply could not be so? Something unknown to men of the late iron-age, but well understood today? could you maybe rephrase your question a little for me, sorry, im not sure exactly what you are asking about i guess. did you have something specific in mind? especially the last two sentences there. thanks so much. -joey
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Post by Electron on Apr 8, 2005 5:49:03 GMT -5
could you maybe rephrase your question a little for me, sorry, im not sure exactly what you are asking about i guess. did you have something specific in mind? especially the last two sentences there. thanks so much. -joey I have commented many times on how the bible reveals the limited technical knowledge of its authors in ways that lead me to believe the key elements to be entirely man-made. But this lack of knowledge does not imply a lack of intellect, indeed I am making the point that the authors were not lacking in ingenuity when it came to drafting the stories in a fashion which would keep people glued to them for so long. But let me relate what I see as typical of the sort of deceit that is employed in maintaining the entire edifice of religion, a particular example that I came across quite recently: It was a TV documentary in which an anthropologist travels from the Holy land to Ethiopia where Solomons son is thought to have taken the Ark of the Covenant. Eventually the chap shows up at a small compound guarded by men brandishing AK47 rifles, where he asks for permission to see the Holy relic. His request is refused on the basis that the power of the relic is so strong that it will turn him to dust. This example is one in which an extraordinary claim could actually be tested (not withstanding the AK47's) unlike most of the extraordinary claims in the old testament. But despite the fierce defense of biblical fundamentalists, symbols of covenant such as rainbows are not the same mystery now that they were 2000 years ago. In the case of the Ark in Ethiopia, it is protected by a trick which effectively puts pay to any rational enquiry - leaving us either to take on faith it or leave it. This type of trick seems to be pulled time and time again by presenting propositions carefully constructed to create an impasse to investigation and validation. If it wasn't for the critical mass due to the sheer numbers of followers, elaborate rituals and impressive machinery of all the major religions conducting such exercises who would really take any of it seriously? The answer to the above question has to be the typical iron-age-man-in-the-street. From that point on the rest, as they say, would be history.
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Post by Satori on Apr 8, 2005 8:36:27 GMT -5
Electron, I saw the programme of which you speak. The Ark's not in Axum of course, but you have to admit that the mystery is a great way to encourage tourism.
Not sure what to make of the Ark myself. It just seemed to stop being talked about in the Old Testament, with no story of it's demise as such, which is odd for what could possibly be the most important object in Jewish history.
Of course, the Old Testament comprises of a lot of fable with some facts thrown in (probably), so it's hard to say whether the Ark really existed in the first place, although its recurrent references might form a strong case for there being at least some truth behind it.
Obviously it didn't really contain a stone with the 10 commandments carved by God on them, but maybe Moses inscribed them himself. Or maybe it was just a box for Moses' toothbrush. Who knows.
Fantastically romantic thing to think about though, what with the Knights Templar connections and all that.
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Post by bobarian on Apr 8, 2005 18:34:04 GMT -5
Electron-
I don't think your views of Scripture are really relevant. I know that there are some dogmatic rationalists who claim that "Scripture contradicts science" and preach it as their good news, but that fact is contradicted by 1) the lack of any evidence of the Bible "contradicting science" (not to mention the fact that science is such a vague things I'm not sure what one is contradicting) and 2) the rise of modern science dates back to the theistic and Christian scholars who were actually funded by the church (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark.) Its really pulling the rug out of Christian scientists' feet for Enlightenment thinkers to claim this contradiction between faith and reason and then use it to re-intrepret all religious thought.
Examine your own statement. You sound like you are claiming that someone runs this whole religious entreprise to control the masses or something. 1) That sounds dangerously like a conspiracy theory, which are not credible and 2) it would be a truly amazing feat of human engineering and design to create even one of the major world religions. If someone did start Christianity, then by all means, He must be God.
On a theoretical level, it is hard to deny that the supernatural exists, for that is simply to say that there is a possibility of the natural order not acting as the natural order does. Considering the fact that all one can say to defend natural cause/effect is that it always happens that way in our experience, our experience cannot rule out the possibility of it actually happening. Thus it theoretically could have happened that Jesus rose from the dead - but how then to prove it? Well, one cannot. Unless, of course, one were to see it - which many did. And wrote it down. The mere fact (in my mind) that these gospels have persuaded so many people and continue to be a source of debate in our "modern" world indicate that they are not merely myth - or, as C.S. Lewis says, they are true myth.
But second, by evaluating the message of Christianity one can see that it uniquely accords with the problems of the human condition. I can't go into all the discussion here (I am a college student), but there are wonderful and amazing books, like Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, that go into depth far better than I can. This is how one can determine between the claims of world religions - what do they purport to offer? And can they really accomplish this?
Peace in Christ. -Bob
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Post by Satori on Apr 9, 2005 11:57:04 GMT -5
This is how one can determine between the claims of world religions - what do they purport to offer? And can they really accomplish this? I think the most worrying thing (for the future of humanity) that I read from you is your belief that your particular version of Christianity is in some way 'more true' than any other religions. I could understand 'better for you' or even 'true in your circumstances' but I think you believe it's 'more true' at the deepest and most absolute level, to the extent that all other beliefs are somehow false. If you don't think that all religions can be true in their own way, perhaps we should discuss how we establish what is true is what isn't.
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Post by Electron on Apr 9, 2005 14:50:12 GMT -5
Electron- I don't think your views of Scripture are really relevant. I'm not talking about a conspiracy theory based on some paranoid fear of a group of people hell-bent on world domination. What I see is a set of ideas that have evolved over time with refutability as the selection mechanism. If you understand the principles of evolution and appreciate that they are not restricted to life alone, you might at least follow my reasoning: The religious ideas that still stand today are those that have placed themselves beyond all forms of contradiction. Most claims, such as Jesus rising from the dead are hearsay accounts which are impossible to verify given the vast passage of time since the alledged events took place. Notice how all such claims are encapsulated in biblical times - there are no recent events being reported (ones that we might stand a better chance of scrutinising - hence my mention of reports of sightings of the Ark in Ethiopia). Indeed the very notion of god is a perfect example of an irrefuatable idea which withstands the selection mechanism (hence the various gods that mankind has known throughout all recorded history). Alternative gods such as the Invisible Pink Unicorn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn) have all the essential credentials yet are ignored for nothing more than reasons of fashionability. For the last 2000 years one particular god has been fashionable - Just like one computer operating system... not because of any particular merit, but because of critical mass and hype. When you say "it would be a truly amazing feat of human engineering and design to create even one of the major world religions. If someone did start Christianity, then by all means, He must be God." I would like to work on this statement... The first part "it would be a truly amazing feat of human engineering and design to create even one of the major world religions" is odd given that every word on every page, every stone in every church, every elaborate ritual & custom has been crafted by man alone. You can argue that god whispered directions into a few individuals heads - but other than that every religion is exactly what you say it could not be. So your conclusion "If someone did start Christianity, then by all means, He must be God" is overlooking the phenomenal power of human imagination. I've already described how the notion of an all-powerful but invisible and silent god would be the best survivor in the evolution of ideas. Maybe you subscribe to Descartes faulty notion that things have to exist in order for them to enter peoples minds? This is to believe that every great work of art or music is somehow hung-up in heaven waiting to be visualised. I for one don't buy any of it.
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Post by theditchmagnet on Apr 9, 2005 21:59:06 GMT -5
I have commented many times on how the bible reveals the limited technical knowledge of its authors in ways that lead me to believe the key elements to be entirely man-made. But this lack of knowledge does not imply a lack of intellect, indeed I am making the point that the authors were not lacking in ingenuity when it came to drafting the stories in a fashion which would keep people glued to them for so long. sure, technical knowledge would be understandable for people so long ago, but this page here was interesting: www.clarifyingchristianity.com/science.shtmlBut despite the fierce defense of biblical fundamentalists, symbols of covenant such as rainbows are not the same mystery now that they were 2000 years ago. just because we understand how a rainbow works does not mean it was not a sign of covenant. there were no rainbows before the flood. im not saying that the light spectrum could not be seen before that time, just that there was no huge arch across the sky. also, i want to ask, regarding the resurrection of Christ, what do you think made apostles and many of the other people during that time want to die for Him if they knew that He was really dead, and that what He said was all wrong? I think the most worrying thing (for the future of humanity) that I read from you is your belief that your particular version of Christianity is in some way 'more true' than any other religions. I could understand 'better for you' or even 'true in your circumstances' but I think you believe it's 'more true' at the deepest and most absolute level, to the extent that all other beliefs are somehow false. If you don't think that all religions can be true in their own way, perhaps we should discuss how we establish what is true is what isn't. i cant speak for bobarian, but as for me, i dont think Christianity is 'more' true than other religions, i believe it is absolutely true, and other religions are not. im not saying that some religions have aspects of them that are good or usefull, but overall. a Christian should believe as the Bible teaches that Jesus is the only way to the Father. i dont understand when people who call themselves Christain 'blend' their beliefs to create these hybrids. then they are not really what it means to be Christian. another religion can be true to itself, but from a Christians perspective, not absolute. for example, when some missionanaries from my chruch were in inda, many of the people there were more than willing to accept Christ. since they were Hindus, they wanted to just throw Jesus up on the shelf with all thier other gods. so they could have been true to the religion in accepting Him, but then there is a clash of belief, as the missionaires had to explain, its either all, or nothing. our God is a jealous God, and will not accept anything more than Himself.
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Post by Satori on Apr 10, 2005 4:15:52 GMT -5
i cant speak for bobarian, but as for me, i dont think Christianity is 'more' true than other religions, i believe it is absolutely true, and other religions are not. Proove it. If you can't you're just holding a personal belief rather than an empirical truth. If Christianity is absolutely 100% true - and you believe in the existence of fundamental, 'realist' truths - you should be able to proove it to me so that I'm in no doubt. However, if we take an anti-realist stance on it, then it's possible for Christianity to be true (and I mean totally true) within the society of Christians who believe in it, yet it is perfectly possible for Islam to be true within their society, Judaism within theirs etc. The concept of truth is bound up in linguistic terminology. The word 'truth', after all, simply has a meaning only in so far as we've been taught what the meaning is. If you point out that there's a chair on the other side of the room, I believe you because we're using the same frame of reference to refer to something that we're both linguistically attuned to. It's a 'given' within our society that we can both accept what a chair is and I don't ask you to prove it every time before I sit down. To a society that has no concept of chairs, however, such a given truth is not so straightforward. The same could be said of religious 'truths'. The job of the religious orthodoxy to which we subscribe is to describe the linguistic values of 'truth' to which it pertains. For example, when a priest gives us bread and wine and says it's the body and blood of Christ, I could take the bread and wine away and have it analysed to prove that it isn't body and blood of anyone at all, but I'm linguistically attuned to Christianity enough to know that the priest is talking about a different sort of truth. One has to be careful with the whole aspect of 'truth' whenever it's used because in a lot of cases it just relates to a common understanding rather than some absolute. We (humans) have a habit of defining things by the blanks; by that I mean that we make a clear distinction between, say, a bulb we plant in the garden and the flower that results from it. The bulb looks totally different from the flower and we have different linguistic terms for both of them, yet they are in some ways one and the same thing. The same comparison could be made between, say, Christianity and Islam. They're described in different linguistic terms as to what is 'true', but those are terms which have been taught to each community such that they become as obvious to them as the chair we mentioned earlier. Christianity and Islam could be as 'true' as the bulb and the flower. What can I offer as evidence for different versions of 'truth'? Well only stuff that's as convincing as the things that people offer for there being one universal order of truth, so it's not 100% convincing, but if we look at the human race and its history of religion, we see religions springing up and splitting humanity into various beliefs. Some religions (and I include atheism and agnosticism here) die, some gain and lose followers from and to other religions, some religions seem to dominate and then falter; but the upshot is that mankind remains diverse in its religious beliefs and I simply refuse to believe that the followers of one religion just happen to be the only religiously wise people on the planet. Until one belief polarizes everyone (or let's say 90% of people) then I'm prepared to accept that they are as true as they need to be for their followers. I can't say what 'true' means to them as that's something which is only valid within their frame of reference but, as far as they are concerned, it certainly is 'true' in the relevant sense of the word. Maybe they believe that Christianity was originally written for a different era and that certain 'truths' (for them) can modify it today. Who are you to say that they're wrong? Their belief is as valid as yours. As Coleridge said: the person who puts their religion before truth is one step away from putting their religious sect before their religion, which is one step away from putting themselves before their religious sect. A 'jealous God'? What is this concept of an omnipotent and omniscient being that can suffer from jealousy? Certainly not Aquinas' God. Now Aquinas' proofs have more holes in them than a string vest, but let's assume they're correct for a moment and we take his model of God - how do we get from that to the Abrahamic God that suffers jealousy?
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